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Frances Shimer/Letters to Caroline Nash/1853-06-03
lit. Carroll, 111. June 3,1S53 i Friday evening Dear sister. Our week's work is dona, we've got thru tea and aow are seated by the open windows of our parlor, sittingroom, etc. Well I wish you could just step in a little whilr, or I could got up Greg and drive out of town two or three miles and give you a call? how I do wish I had Greg here and by the way I a&ll have if I remain any length of time. We are going to Savanna tomorrow, I^ex- psot to visit the "Father of waters." But some one comes in, excuse 12© for tonight. Sunday P.M. We've been to two meetings today, had our tea and now am seated to finish this letter though the probability is I may not get it done under a weekt I never had so little time for writing in my llfej besides our labors, so many calls to receive and return, eto.etc. Cindaand I do not agree to a ttend the ^ same church. She has a classin the Presbyterian and Baptist Sabbath school and I one in the Methodist. I wish there never was such a thing as sectarianism thought of s herd's Domeny Gray, the Presbyterian minister and President of our Board of Trustees, he and his sanctimonious wife had fits ever since they found w© were not both stiff Presbyterians. Then Mr. Griaea ( ! ) is a Methodist preacher (another of our Trustees) but he's far more liberal in his views. Then another of them is Hon. David Sinmert, who's a Duncard preachers and then again Rev. J,/. Allison (Baptist) is our teacher of Languages and so on — Mr. Gray, he thinks no institution can be built up unless it has the influence of some popular relig- % ious sec, and of course that one (in his estimation) is the Presbyterian, and while ws were to remain in his church with our school, he hoped it would be re- garded as a Presbyterian school, but thank fortune we are in rooms of our own now, and when they get us under the control of any one party, sect or aenominatioa they will know it I reckon but^enough of this — » ' Well, we went to Savanna Saturday, as we expected, had a delightful time with the exception of suffering a good deal from fear when ridings Mr. Wilson took us out in the best establishment the town affordss a beautiful little span of cream colored horses, but he is no reinsman much and careless as fury ana I expected to have my neek broken sure, but we gor home safe, with four or five vejX narrow escapes from being upset. We crossed the Mississippi rive to S&bula in Iowa, where we took dinner and unexpectedly met with a Normal (Miss Smith) who left Albany only last termj she is teaching back in Iowa a few miles from the river. I never saw so great a variety of scenery in one day as we passeo through on Saturdays for the first four miles from Mt. Carroll we passsaover as delightful sectionsof country as can well be imagined - beautiful rolling Prairie, all under t the best of cultivation with trees and shrubery enough grown and around buildings to break the monotony of prairie scenery? then the last six miles the country in- creases in roughness till it's almost mountainous (or about so much so as Galaway( till we get just to the town of Savanna where it opens out into a beautiful lit. tie plain running down to the river without the least sign of a bank for nearly a miles, but this plain is very narrow, not wide enough for two streets with yards, etc ,/ $ then comes the bluffs, on which(if . S ever becomes a city as they expect) tnay T will be obliged to builds just about where Isaac owns that land.*y^|io« --J"t'ell you what I want to doj that is buy that property at Savanna. I was quite delighted with the location of the house upon it (the one where Wilson used to live) there's a beautiful row of locust trees around it and around a garden plet which W. set out some twelve years ago, so you may know they are quite large t-r&ea* It would be a splendid location for a Seminary building and I want to own it. I think however it will be sme time before things will ccme around so as to make that land very valuable though there was a man to see W. about buying of Isaac who offered a hundred dollars per acre and W. thought he would yet offer #150 per acre. There is a good deal of rivalry between this town and Savaaaa. Mow &* difficulty about the Seminary buildings going on hare, is tti« enormous price at Sidh thi land, (where it is any say desirable location) are hlU|W £• *•• 5 I w a good location at 3. it's not so far (only tan miles) but *• can ao ve our ««hooI there and the It. Carroll people knowing this ****** **f Jjj to more liberal efforts to keep us here since it will be no snail loss to the place and no mean acquisition to Savanna to have us locate taere. So it will be ooliev for me to buy it even if I never go near it myself. leil isaac :fout it P fndhLe\rwrite me ho. and what he will do and make ^^J^ meats with Wilson about it - don't le t ^gLJgfJMM^ for our seh ° o1 matters can't lie still, nwe've got to keep something moving. We ** b « ""J" * f^J disadvantage for want of boarding places for our scholars, we have to W*